ASTRO: King 5

King 5 is an open cluster in Perseus. The King catalog of star clusters
is small. There are only 26 members and #3 is missing or a duplicate of
NGC 609, depending on who you wish to believe. Nearly all King clusters
reside in a narrow band about 50 to 60 degrees North declination and are
in the Milky way running from about 23 hours R.A. to 3 hours. So they
are in a rather small area of the sky. It appears King made three
searches for previously unknown clusters as the catalog runs from 0
through 24 hours, then does so again, then does so again. Each time
picking up less obvious clusters. Some may not even be true clusters.
One is actually well below the celestial equator. It must be the
outcast member of the group. Anyway I happened to need something in the
only clear spot on the sky one night and this was the object. Not
needing a lot of exposure time I started to image it. The sky clouded
over then cleared then clouded then cleared. With the poor sky I just
kept imaging and ended up with my normal exposure time but it was
visible only about 20% of the time. The rest of the time I was seeing
nothing but clouds. So this image doesn't go very deep compared to my
normal images but is rather pretty. The cluster is estimated to be
about 6000 light years from us. Distances to such clusters is not
easily measured so this is only a rough estimate. Like all King
clusters it is made up of faint stars so not a cluster to see visually
unless you are using a 20" or larger telescope.

14" LX200R @ f/5, L=4x10', RGB 2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick
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Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".